The apartment market has changed dramatically in the past decade.
Whereas ten years ago when a prospect would drive-by a property banner and immediately call the community phone number to setup a tour, nowadays prospects do their research online before calling the apartment community.
Traditional marketing is still able to be controlled by the apartment community with printed flyers and brochures, but the online reputation can often be made by disgruntled former and current residents.
Don't allow your online reputation to be made by someone else.
Here are a few easy ways to maintain control of what is said about your community: 1.
Search your apartment community daily on a multitude of online sources.
Google, Yahoo, Bing, Facebook, Twitter, Yelp, Rentwiki and especially Apartment Ratings, are all sites where individuals will not only search for your community, but are also sites where damaging comments could be posted about your community.
It is important that you always familiarize yourself with these sites to know what exactly is being said about your community in the online world.
2.
Once reviews are located about your community, it is pertinent to read and respond to these reviews.
When addressing these reviews it is just as important to respond to the positive reviews as it is to the negative reviews.
Thanking a resident for a positive review shows that you are concerned with establishing a rapport with not only those previous, or current residents, but also the future ones.
When responding to a negative review, it is extremely important to maintain a professional approach and also to directly address the negative comments made.
Don't let any of the objections posted go unanswered, because it will make any negative statements appear that much worse if you pick and choose which ones you address.
Google will allow you to directly address a review through Google Places for free, but some sites, like Apartment Ratings will require an annual fee to be able to address the reviews as a manager.
Trust me.
It is well worth the fee to directly respond to these negative reviews.
3.
Google Alerts is a great way to monitor what is being said about your community via Email.
Google Alerts allows you to receive notifications daily in regards to any new information that is appearing online about your community.
It's as easy as entering your community specific name and a select email address and you will begin being notified when your community has new information posted about it online.
4.
Create numerous property specific websites in effort to be able to control some content about your community.
There are a large amount of free apartment related websites that allow you to post your community for free, but a popular few are Facebook, Twitter and even Blogspot, or Blogger to create a property specific blog.
It is very important to monitor what is being said about your community online.
It only takes one negative statement to sway that interested prospect from visiting your community, so keep that in mind and become an online expert about your property! Enjoy! CLASS Leasing